"As members come to our office, we take them as they walk in, and they receive their number sequentially out of the ledger book that we use," House Chief Clerk Robert Haney explained.

Bills without numbers could be a hassle to organize, given the thousands of bills that are filed. The official titles go on at length. The first words of SB 2 read: "A bill to be entitled an act relating to charter schools and home-rule charter school districts including establishment of the Charter School Authorizing Authority."

With the number in hand, readers can access www.capitol.state.tx.us, enter the bill number and find a bevy of information, such as the exact wording of the bill, votes taken on the bill and notes about the fiscal impact of the bill.

Finally, having a bill number helps Texans contact their representatives and senators to share their views on the proposed legislation.

About the first 10 bills or so are generally reserved by the House Speaker for high-priority issues, Haney said.

HB 1, for example, is the budget bill that doles out money to state agencies and universities. HB 10, meanwhile, is an emergency appropriations act that the state put together partly to pay off an IOU of about $4.5 billion to Medicaid, health care for the poor, and other health expenses. HB 150 is generally a redistricting bill when redistricting is at issue, Haney said.

Sometimes a representative's staff member will wait for a number they like before they get a bill its digits.

"Members are kind of into numerology, but I think the most seasoned, veteran members would tell you the number doesn't matter," Haney said. "Some people feel that numbers lend significance to their legislation. Obviously that varies."

The process is mostly the same in the Senate.

The top 25 are reserved for Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, the head of the Senate, to help decide which bills get priority, said Linda Tubbs, Senate calendar clerk.

For the most part, however, a lower bill number won't mean a quicker committee hearing.

"The number is really irrelevant, because it is heard in committee, and reported out of committee and there is no order for that," Tubbs said.

The number of pieces of legislation, meanwhile, has been down this session, Tubbs said.

"It has been really slow by a pretty good percent," Tubbs said. "Probably about down 10 or 15 percent overall, maybe as much as 20. We were down 60 percent for a long time at the start. It has been a really slow session as far as filing."

The reason for the slow filing was a bit of a mystery around the office, she said.

The House had filed about 4,200 bills the morning of the deadline, compared with about 7,000 filed in the last regular session. The Senate had filed about 2,000 the morning of the deadline, compared with about 3,300 of the last regular session.

Kate Raetz, the legislative director for Rep. Drew Darby, R-San Angelo, said her office and Darby are happy to have HB 7, a bill that aims to help end a budget gimmick. The bill would help reduce taking funds reserved for special purposes and using them to balance the budget instead of using them for the special purpose. There is a possibility of reducing the fees going to those special purposes if lawmakers aren't using all the money, Darby has said. This would help keep the state from hoarding money that is meant for special purposes, such as state park maintenance.

"It's great," Raetz said regarding the bill number. "They trust us to do important things."